


The Lure of You

by Deisderium



Series: Happy Steve Bingo 2018 [7]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Canon Divergence - Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain Cuddles and the Snuggly Soldier, Crack Treated Seriously, First Kiss, Fluff, Happy Steve Bingo, Happy Steve Bingo 2018, It's Giving Him Pantsfeelings, M/M, Mutual Pining, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Oblivious Steve Rogers, POV Steve Rogers, Scents & Smells, Semi-seriously, Steve Is Getting Too Many Hugs, okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-28
Updated: 2018-10-28
Packaged: 2019-08-09 00:16:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16439546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deisderium/pseuds/Deisderium
Summary: The prompt here is "You Smell Really Nice."Bucky can't seem to stop touching Steve and smelling him. Steve is trying to think of baseball. If Bucky is Proust, Steve is the madeleine.





	The Lure of You

Steve had gotten used to having no personal space since Bucky moved in with him.

"Saying Bucky moved in with you makes it sound way more formal than it was," Natasha said.

Steve couldn't argue; after he’d been released from the hospital after the helicarriers, he'd come home to pick up a few things only to find a six-foot leather-wrapped assassin sitting next to his shot-up wall and gently vibrating with outrage and the last of whatever drugs Hydra had pumped him full of. When Steve came to the Tower--because he couldn't stay where Fury had been shot--Bucky had come with him, because where else was he going to go? And Steve wanted him there--oh, did he want him there. He wanted too much, that was the issue. 

"I'm not complaining," Steve said, guiltily aware that actually, he was complaining. "He can have whatever he needs from me. You know that."

"I know." She leaned back and took a long slurp of her smoothie. Bucky was asleep, and Steve had taken the opportunity to take a bit of a break and catch up with Natasha on the Tower terrace. It wasn't that he minded Bucky touching him, not exactly. "So what's the problem?" 

Steve felt his face heating even before he formulated what he was going to say. He couldn't even curse his fair complexion, exactly, because Natasha was also really pale, but he didn't think her facial capillaries would dare vasodilate.  His, on the other hand, flooded his face at the drop of a hat. "It's not a problem, Nat, not really. I guess he's always been touchy."

Natasha's brow wrinkled. "Standoffish? Maybe when he was under Hydra control--" 

"No, no. Touch-y. Feel-y." An arm around Steve's shoulder. His thigh pressed against Steve's as they listened to the radio in their apartment. Bumping into him accidentally-on-purpose when they walked together. Steve had never minded, even though it had become a sweet torment when he was old enough to understand why the casually affectionate touches from Bucky thrilled him, and why they shouldn't. 

"And that's...bad?" Natasha's face held the same tiny smile that it almost always did, but Steve couldn't help feeling like she was laughing at him. 

"Of course not. It's just...it was different when he knew who he was."  At the moment, Bucky still spoke Russian more often than English, stared blankly when Steve asked him about their shared memories, and cleared their apartment at the Tower every time they left it, even if it was only for an hour to eat a meal with the other Avengers. He also plastered himself to Steve every time Steve stood still, and sometimes when he didn't. It was like his body remembered Steve when his mind did not, which if Steve thought about it for too long made his eyes water and his chest tighten.

"If you don't like it, why don't you just tell him?" Natasha said, as if he would ever deny Bucky anything that brought him comfort.

"It's not that I don't like it." Steve's nascent blush chose that moment to attack with full force. He braced himself mentally. He'd never shared this particular truth with anyone before. "I like it too much. I always liked him too much. It wasn't like that between us, before. And I don't think he'll want it to be that way now, when he remembers." 

Natasha's lips flattened out and she set her drink down, which was how Steve knew she was taking him seriously. "He's not trying to--" 

"No! No. He just wants to touch me all the time, and it's--" Steve had been going to say hard, but he changed course. "--difficult not to take it the wrong way." 

"Steve, _you're_ not trying to--" 

"No! Of course not. That would be wrong. And when he does remember more, I don't want him to feel like I took advantage." His face felt like it was on fire. 

Nat picked up her drink and took a sip. "Thank you for telling me, Steve. It means a lot that you trust me with this. I'm not sure what to tell you, though. If he's getting something out of hanging onto you, I think your best course of action is probably to ignore your boner and cuddle him back."

Steve hadn't thought he could blush any harder, but it wasn't the first time he'd been wrong. "Thank you for those very comforting words of advice, Nat." He stole her smoothie out of her hand and held it against his burning cheekbone, then took a sip in revenge and gave it back, ignoring her _ew_ face. "Really, though--thanks for listening. I feel better." 

She kicked him under the table. "Happy to help." 

"But Jesus, Nat, it's my feelings I'm worried about, not my dick." 

She shrugged and took a sip of her drink. "Why not both?" 

*

Time passed. Bucky remembered more every month, it seemed. Steve kept waiting for him to remember that there was distance between them, that he hadn't spent every meal pressed against Steve's side, that he didn't casually drape himself over Steve like a favorite pillow, that he used to sleep pressed against Steve because it was cold, not wrapped around Steve like a kid with his favorite teddy bear.

His stares got less blank. His shoulders relaxed. He told Steve some of the things he remembered.

Steve told himself that his body's reaction to Bucky's constant closeness didn’t have to mean anything. They were friends; they always had been; it was what they would always be, and Steve wasn't going to ruin it.

*

Bucky was awake when Steve got back to the apartment after his morning run, frowning at the coffee maker like he was personally offended that it wasn't brewing faster. He turned when Steve opened the door, and his face softened. Steve couldn't help it; his heart lifted in his chest like a hot air balloon taking off. Bucky had stopped wearing so much leather, but he still had a definite predilection for black. He was wearing black jeans and a black t-shirt, and his hair was pulled back into a low, messy ponytail. 

"Steve," Bucky said, and crossed the room in a couple of determined strides. Steve was reminded of how he had walked over cars on the bridge in DC, and it shouldn't have been as attractive as it was, either in Hydra's weird bondage tactical jacket or right now. Bucky wrapped his arms around Steve. Steve folded him into a hug in return. It was a relief in ways that had nothing to do with Steve's boner, thanks Nat; Bucky was solid and real, and he was here. Bucky tilted his head down to sniff along Steve's neck, taking in a deep breath, and, well. That didn't help with Steve's feelings situation. 

 "Ty khorosho pakhnesh'," Bucky muttered. His voice was  right in Steve's ear, and Steve couldn't help the shiver that ran down his spine. 

"Sorry, Buck, I didn't get that." Steve was trying to learn Russian, but he hadn't gotten much further than "the pen of my uncle is under the chair of my aunt." In other parts of the Tower, he could ask Jarvis to translate, but Bucky had been deeply wary of the disembodied voice and suspicious that Jarvis was always watching them, and Steve hadn't been too thrilled with the idea of constant surveillance either, so their apartment was AI-less. 

Bucky pulled back just enough to look at Steve. His forehead wrinkled a little; sometimes he could find the English words, but sometimes they eluded him. Steve was pretty sure he understood it just fine. Bucky shook his head and buried his face in the crook of Steve's neck. Steve held onto him, keeping his hands still over the muscles around Bucky's spine. It was nice. Just two friends holding on to each other, hugging for minutes at a time. 

The coffeemaker gave a loud gurgle and then beeped. Bucky let go of Steve. "Coffee?" he said. 

"Sure, that'd be nice. Thank you." Steve leaned against the counter and watched Bucky pour for both of them, leaving Steve's black, but adding cream and sugar to his own. When they both had drinks, Steve went into the living room. He sat on the couch. Experience had taught him that if he tried to sit on the armchair, he was going to end up with a lapful of supersoldier as Bucky tried to cram them both into the too-small space. Better to take the couch. Sometimes he got as much as an inch or two of space between them for a few minutes. 

Not today, though. Bucky brought his coffee over, set it down on the coffee table, and sidled up against Steve, wrapping one arm around his torso and resting his head on Steve's chest. He turned so his face was against Steve's pectoral muscles, and took a deep breath in. _This is fine,_ Steve told himself. _Nothing untoward to see here. Just two guys being guys. Hugging and sniffing each other like bros do, nothing sexual about it at all. Please don't let me actually get a boner_. 

Bucky had shut his eyes. "Pochemu ty tak khorosho pakhnesh'?" he said. "Kak pamyat', ya ne mogu vspomnit'."

Steve put a hand up to stroke Bucky's hair. He wasn't just going to sit here and be used as a pillow without touching Bucky back. "I sure wish I knew what you were telling me, pal."

Bucky hummed against his chest. Steve kept petting his hair and resolutely thinking platonic thoughts. 

"You smell really nice," Bucky said after a couple of minutes. 

"Yeah?" Steve said, nonplussed. 

"I remember..." Bucky took another long sniff of Steve's chest. "I liked the way you smelled. Except when you were sick. That feels good." 

Steve's hand had gone still in Bucky's hair, so he started moving it again. "You remember when I was sick?" 

"Yeah. And when we were in Europe. After you got big." He hesitated. "You always smelled good after that, and I could smell you better." He turned his head into Steve's chest again and said, "Ya khotel lizat' tebya."

Steve dug his fingers into Bucky's hair, overcome. This was more memories than Buck had admitted to all at once before. "I'm so glad you're remembering, buddy. You always smelled good to me too." This was probably missing the exit to platonic heterosexual bro-ville, but fuck it. "You'd come home from the garage smelling like sweat and machine oil and pomade. Smelled like home to me." He swallowed. "You still do, even though you smell different now." 

"Ty tozhe moy dom." Bucky burrowed into his side, and they fell silent. After a while, Steve fell asleep, his hand still tangled in Bucky's hair. 

*

It was one thing to be Bucky's personal climbing gym in the privacy of their apartment, but another when other people were there. 

Natasha had brought over some absolutely vile black tea and poured three cups. Steve had raised it to his lips a couple of times to be polite, but Bucky and Natasha were drinking it with every evidence of enjoyment, having stirred in a couple of spoonfuls of jam, what the actual hell. Steve had hoped that having Nat there would maybe give Bucky a slight amount of pause, but no. 

Natasha sat on the chair, Steve took his place on the couch, and Bucky came up behind him and tucked his face along the back of Steve's neck. He was pretty sure Bucky was smelling his hair. It wasn't that he didn't like it; he had to bite his lip hard to keep from gasping in...platonic surprise. Natasha was right there. 

"Tebe nravitsya eto?" Bucky murmured, in a distinctly fond tone of voice. 

"Yasha! Vy pytayetes' smutit' yego?" Natasha sounded chiding, and Bucky stiffened, straightening up and coming around to the other side of the couch. He slid in next to Steve and left a whole three-quarters of an inch between them. It was what Steve had wanted, which made it even more ridiculous that he wished more than Bucky's body heat would cross the distance between them. 

"...No," Bucky said softly. There followed a swift exchange in Russian that ended with Natasha throwing up her hands, and Bucky crossing his arms over his chest and glaring, until a minute later, she said something that made him laugh, and everything was fine again. Steve could admit to himself, if no one else, that he was a little jealous. He wanted so badly to be able to communicate that easily with Bucky, to make him laugh like that, head thrown back, the skin around his eyes crinkling with fine lines like arrows pointing to happiness. 

Well, he was just going to have to work harder on his Russian. 

After Natasha left, Steve put on a movie ( _The Book of Kells_ \--Russian subtitles on--and the beauty of modern animation was something he had yet to stop marveling over), and he could admit it was nice when Bucky butted up against him like an impatient cat and the two of them curled around each other on the very large couch like a set of parentheses with no sentence in between. Steve was warm, bracketed by Bucky's flesh arm. Bucky's heartbeat was like a metronome, slow and steady and reassuring, and he smelled good; like their laundry detergent, and his very expensive leave-in conditioner, and underneath it, the scent that was just his skin. 

Steve squeezed him tighter. Bucky hadn't been touched affectionately for decades. He'd been isolated when he wasn't being tortured or experimented on. Steve blinked hard a couple of times. If his need to catch up meant that he was plastered against Steve like a second skin at all times, so be it. So what if all this cuddling was confusing his body. His feelings were clear: whatever Bucky needed from him. He'd just have to keep taking cold showers, that was all. 

"Steve," Bucky said when the movie was over and Steve was half dozing off, comfortable and warm. 

"Mmmmmm," Steve said. 

"Do you mind?" 

"Mind what?" 

Bucky bit his lip. Sometimes it took him a minute to put the English words together in the right order. But it seemed like it was coming a little easier these days. "Natasha thought you might be embarrassed. Because I was touching you." 

"I'm not embarrassed," Steve protested automatically, even as his face heated. "Well, maybe a little in front of other people. But I don't actually care. If it helps you to touch me, then touch me all you want." 

"Vy delayete eto spetsial'no?" Bucky cleared his throat. "That probably wouldn't be a good idea. What bothers you about other people?" 

"Assumptions they might make," Steve managed to say, and then, because he was never very good at letting things lie, "Why wouldn't it be a good idea?" 

Bucky's fingers slowly closed on a handful of Steve's shirt. The slow drag of fabric over the skin of Steve's chest made him draw in a breath. _Think heterosexual thoughts_ , he told himself, but he'd never been very good at that around Bucky.  

"Because I don't want to stop touching you when I start," Bucky said. "Because I want to touch you everywhere."

Oh. Maybe all the hugging and sniffing wasn't only a post-traumatic reaction for Bucky, either. Pressed together as close as they were, Bucky would soon be aware, if he wasn't already, of the effect his last sentence was having on Steve. 

"Jesus, Buck. I want that too." Bucky made a low sound, almost like a growl. It didn't ease Steve's pants situation at all. "I just worry that when you remember everything, you won't want that. That you'd regret it." 

Suddenly, instead of cuddling up next to Steve, Bucky was straddling him, pinning him to the couch, his hands resting on Steve's shoulders. "I regret," he said slowly, "not ever letting you know that I wanted to touch you before. Because I always did, Steve. When you were small and sick. When you were big and strong. In that stupid uniform, god help me." His flesh hand traced a line down the center of Steve's abdomen. Steve's nipples helpfully went hard and he tried to suppress a moan. "All the reasons it seemed so important to keep it secret don't matter so much now on the other side of everything."

"Bucky..." Steve reached up and fisted a hand in the material of Bucky's shirt. "That's more English than I've heard you speak in one go." 

 Bucky leaned forward, sliding his hands off Steve's shoulders to the couch beside him, bracing himself around Steve's torso. Steve tugged on his shirt to pull him even closer and arched up to kiss him. Bucky's hair hung around them like a curtain keeping the world away, and his mouth was warm and soft against Steve's. Steve's heart thudded against his ribcage, and he moved his hands under Bucky's shirt, letting himself touch the ridges and dips of musculature and skin because he could, now. Bucky gasped into his mouth, and Steve's insides went molten with want. 

They broke apart some time later to breathe in ragged exhalations. Bucky rolled a little to the side and turned his face to press against Steve's collarbone. "I had a good motivation," he mumbled.

"What?" Steve had no idea what he was talking about.

"To speak English. Couldn't try to kiss you until I could talk to you about it."

Steve tightened his arms around him. "Then maybe you can help me with my Russian lessons."  

**Author's Note:**

> I do love a fic where Bucky is not sure about being touched after everything he's been through, but one where he really, really likes it as long as it's with someone he feels safe around seemed to be a fit with this prompt.
> 
> The title is from Ella Fitgerald's ["All of You." ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSa_HuZG_d0)
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not speak Russian, and all of the translations here are courtesy of Google. If they are wrong, please tell me and I'll correct them.
> 
> Ty khorosho pakhnesh' (you smell good.)
> 
> Pochemu ty tak khorosho pakhnesh'? (Why do you smell so nice?) Kak pamyat', ya ne mogu vspomnit'. (Like a memory I can't recall.)
> 
> Ya khotel lizat' tebya. (I wanted to lick you.)
> 
> Ty tozhe moy dom. (You're my home too.)
> 
> Tebe nravitsya eto? (You like that?)
> 
> Yasha! Vy pytayetes' smutit' yego? (James! Are you trying to embarrass him?)
> 
> Vy delayete eto spetsial'no? (Do you do this on purpose?)
> 
> \------------  
> I have hit Bingo on my card! (Plus a couple of bonuses.) I am marking this series complete since the bingo is complete, but if an idea that matches a prompt hits, I'll probably just go ahead and add it anyway.


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